Tag Archives: Pedro Ximenez

Laphroaig PX Cask.. or is it?

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A number of distilleries come up with some pretty interesting releases for the travel retail/duty free market. Sometimes it’s just a bigger bottle, a higher ABV or non-chill filtering, but there’s also a healthy selection of travel retail exclusive expressions that you won’t find anywhere else.

So when a relative was going on a recent overseas trip, I asked them to pick me up a couple of travel-retail exclusives. Whiskies that I knew I wouldn’t be able to try elsewhere. At the top of that list was this one – the pedro ximenez finished Laphroaig PX Cask.

Laphroaig PX Cask tube

I’ve always enjoyed a good Laphroaig and was excited to see what kind of influence a pedro ximenez cask finish would have on their trademark medicinal peat notes. That excitement was somewhat short-lived though when I excitedly popped the top off the tube and had a peek inside…

Laphroaig Quarter Cask bottle

That’s right, at some point someone had swapped the bottle of Laphroaig PX for a bottle of Quarter Cask!

That’s kind of like unwrapping your Christmas present to find the box for a GI Joe action figure, complete with sub-machine gun and a big hunting knife, then opening the box to find a Ken doll with board-shorts and some sunglasses. Well, that’s probably a bit too harsh, but you get the idea – where’s my sherried Laphroaig!? Fiddlesticks!

It was by no means a total loss though, for I now had a whole litre of glorious Quarter Cask to work my way through.

Laphroaig QC label

Laphroaig updated their packaging around May 2013, but this bottle is still in the older style, with a textured matte-paper label and the slightly older font.

Quarter cask is a No Age Statement (NAS) whisky (ie. there’s no age written on the label). But rumour has it that this expression spends the first five years of its life maturing in standard bourbon barrels before being moved into quarter casks for a period of around seven to eight months.

Laphroaig booklet

Thanks to this bottle, I’m now now a Friend of Laphroaig and also an international land owner, with my very own square foot of Islay! You just follow the instructions in this little booklet and Laphroaig send you your very own certificate of land ownership. Time to head over there and start excavating that square foot – Grand Designs style!

Quarter casks

So what’s a quarter cask? The name’s fairly self explanatory I guess – it’s ‘a quarter of a cask’. But then I thought, hang on, what sized ‘cask’ are we actually talking about here? A standard sized bourbon barrel? A Hogshead? A butt?

I hit the interwebs in search of an answer and came across responses ranging from 40 through to 125 litres. I was still no closer to the truth, so I decided to get in touch with the folks at Laphroaig directly. I’ve since been reliably informed by a Brand Ambassador that the quarter casks they use are indeed 125 litres in size. They start life as a 42 stave once-used American Oak butt, before 15 staves are removed, reducing their overall size down to 125 litres.

Nose

Oily and coastal on the first pass. Brine, smoky seaweed, maybe some diesel and a vegetal cigar note. We’re well away from smoked meats, bonfires and BBQs with this Laphroaig – A real ‘dockside’ scent to this one in my opinion. Digging deeper I got some vanilla, some fresh zesty/tangy notes of lemon and something anise in character – black jelly beans or liquorice perhaps?

Palate

A medium oily mouth feel gives way to a decent burst of spice – baking spice and cigars. The anise note from the nose shows through slightly on the palate, along with a certain sweet ashy flavour and loads of peaty tang.

Smoke was apparent when the bottle was first opened, but months down the track it has dissipated significantly. The palate also seems to have gone from being fairly pointy and aggressive to a lot more rounded and slightly closed.

Finish

I thought this had a fairly good length to the finish and remained cheek-suckering for a few moments. I also got a certain drying vegetal tobacco spice right at the end, like the aftertaste of puffing a cigar.

I never did get to try the Laphroaig PX Cask..

..and just to rub a bit more salt into the wound, from what I’m seeing online it looks like everyone who’s tried it seems to rather enjoy it. It also looks like it’s slowly been removed from duty free stores around the world, so my chance may have come and gone.

All wasn’t lost though, as the Laphroaig Quarter Cask really is an enjoyable whisky. The fact it’s part of their core range and is bottled at 48% ABV non-chill filtered is a big plus in my books. If you’re already a fan of the classic 10 year old, this bigger winter warmer is definitely worth a try.

Glendronach 2002 single cask

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Distilled 2002, 10 years old, Cask No. 2022, 53.4% ABV, Pedro Ximenez Sherry Puncheon, Highlands, Scotland

If you read this blog for any length of time, it’s going to become quite apparent that I’m a fairly big Glendronach fan.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the kind of moment where one particular bottle cements your love of a distillery, but I’ve had such a moment and it came for me after a few tastings of this particular Glendronach.

Glendronach 2002

This isn’t any ordinary Glendronach though. It’s a single cask expression bottled exclusively for the Netherlands after spending 10 years in Pedro Ximenez sherry puncheon number 2022. Not sure why the tube says ‘distillery exclusive’ on it though!

Glendronach 2002 tube base

The distillation date in July 2002 is a rather curious thing as well, as up until 14 May 2002 Glendronach had been closed for a good six years. That would make this one of their earlier distillates after re-opening in 2002.

That six years of being mothballed resulted in a few changes at Glendronach though and upon re-opening they began buying in their malt in (where they previously floor-malted their own barley).

A few years later they also switched to indirect steam-heated stills, but the distillate in this particular bottling would have still been produced using the direct coal-fired stills they were running at the time.

Glendronach 2002 tube

The presentation is similar to the official Glendronach single cask releases that are put out twice per year. The main difference though, is that the country exclusive bottles are presented in card tubes, instead of the rather more glamorous faux suede-lined cases. I say glamorous, but I’ve also had friends call them coffin boxes, so perhaps the card tube ‘aint so bad after all!

Did you know…

Apart from bottling special releases for specific markets, Glendronach also bottle single cask releases for specific stores, such as Royal Mile Whiskies in the UK, La Maison du Whisky in France and K&L Wines in California.

Glendronach’s biggest market though? According to their Regional Sales Manager, Douglas Cook, it’s actually Taiwan!

Glendronach 2002 label
Nose

Some esthery polish notes when first poured and not immediately sweet. This did open up considerably with some time in the glass, offering hints of bitter, high-cacao dark chocolate, dried tart raisins and some sweetness I’d liken to damp brown sugar. Mid-way through the dram and it became much more lively with a hint of ripe banana, orange and chewy caramel.

Quite a closed and not overly involving nose on this, but much more mature and rounded than I would have expected from a 10 year old whisky.

Palate

Immediately oily and viscous – it coats your tongue and offers nothing for a brief second then literally bursts with big sweet juicy raisin and plum flavours. Super jammy, thick and rich with candied orange rind and a syrupy bitter caramel sweetness. Very lively and bright on the palate.

Finish

Finishes long and warming and remains sweet for an awfully long time with some triple sec (orange liqueur) notes toward the end. I also caught the slightest appearance of oak on the back of the palate as well. 

Some final thoughts

A few drops of water opened up the nose slightly quicker, but killed off that explosive edge I found on the palate. For me, the palate is where I found the real character of this dram, so I decided to keep the water well away from this one.

Despite my overt fondness of this particular Glendronach, it’s not the best I’ve ever had, but it’s been hugely – and consistently – enjoyable, from the moment I opened it, to the very last dram. As much as I love some of their older bottlings, these young post 2002 bottles have so much to offer and can easily be added to that growing list of great young whiskies.

If Glendronach continue to release young bottlings, we’ll eventually see a 2005 bottle which will be the real test for me as it’ll use commercial malt and will have been produced using steam-heated stills. Will it hold up to the rich oily character of these earlier bottles? I guess time will tell.

 

Glendronach 1994 single cask

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Batch 9, Distilled 1994, 19 years old, Cask No. 3385, 53.4% ABV, Pedro Ximenez Sherry Puncheon, Speyside, Scotland

If you’re into heavily sherried whiskies, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Glendronach. Their regular core range is pretty top-notch, consisting of four different offerings ranging in age from 12 through to 21 years.

The bottle being tasted isn’t actually part of their core range though. It’s part of their semi-annual limited release of ‘single cask’ expressions, which are bottled at natural cask strength. You don’t see these too often in Australia, so when a friend suggested I review his bottle, I wasn’t exactly going to say no!

Glendronach 1994

Look at that colour! It’s like treacle or golden syrup! I don’t know about you, but when I see a whisky that colour – and when I know that it’s natural colour – I get pretty damn excited.

Glendronach 1994 - Copper

The presentation of these bottles is pretty special – rich metallic brown packaging scribed in copper coloured lettering. The box is also lined in a sand colour suede-like material. You feel a real sense of occasion when you pick up and open the box on one of these.

Glendronach 1994 - NCF

Apart from being bottled at cask strength, all of Glendronach’s single cask releases are non-chill filtered (NCF) and bottled at their natural colour – something they’re quite proud of. This is as close as many of us will come to drinking straight out of a cask!

Glendronach 1994 - Label

This particular bottle is from batch 9 of their single cask releases. Distilled in 1994 and matured in a Pedro Ximenez Sherry Puncheon – one of the larger casks used in the whisky industry at around 500 litres in size.

Did you know…

When this particular batch of whisky was distilled in 1994, Glendronach still floor malted their own barley (instead of buying malted barley in from somewhere else).

As part of the malting process, they dried their barley over a coal and peat fuelled fire, resulting in a spirit that was peated to around 14 parts per million (PPM). This is nowhere near the ~55-60 PPM of something like an Ardbeg 10 year old, but it’s still pretty peaty for a Speyside whisky!

Nose

Immediately I got classic sweet PX sherry with some tarty notes in there – almost like tarty raisins or apricots.  Sniffing it again (and this might sound a bit crazy), I was reminded of caramelized peaches – you know, when you cut one in half, sprinkle brown sugar on it, add a knob of butter then put it under the grill in your oven. Lovely rich caramelized sugar and fruit notes, with a hint of burnt spice. A really deep nose that you can sniff and sniff and sniff.

If you leave this to sit for a good while in the glass it really opens up and the brown sugar raisin notes really come to the front quite nicely.

Palate

The first thing you notice is how thick, syrupy and tongue coating it is. Just brilliant. Sweet dried raisins, hint of spice, slight oakiness and a really faint sour fruit note – maybe orange marmalade? All of the flavours are really complimentary – no single one jumps out sharply at you.

Finish

The finish is long and warming, not fierce at all, a real winter chest warmer – which is kind of ironic considering I tried it on a 40 degree (104F) summer day in Sydney! Fruity sweetness eventually fades and some of the tannic oak starts to show through after a good few minutes.

Comments

Even though this is bottled at 53.4%, it’s incredibly drinkable and that extra few percent – combined with the non-chill filtering – really locks in a huge amount of flavour.

When I see that kind of ABV, I often consider adding a few drops of water, but I don’t think this needed any all. I did test it out, but I personally think it lost some of its magic. A bit of patience and some glass time is all this one needed to really shine.